If you are one of the few people who walked with an extra skip in their step today because you won your Oscar pool last night, congratulations to you. However, the rest of us are listening to friends and co-workers gloat as they collect their winnings. Maybe next year. Unfortunately, there are no saber metrics for the Academy Awards but with an understanding of voting techniques, past history and basic pool strategy you can be in contention year in and year out.

Pick an Underdog

Assuming none of the categories are weighted, don’t be afraid to shy away from the favorite. I’m not saying you should have picked Toy Story 3 for Best Picture – although calling that upset should be rewarded with a cut of the winnings but pick a nominee who will probably come in a close 2nd. Annette Benning, Geoffrey Rush, or The Social Network (Best Picture) all qualified under this principle.

As important as the major categories appear, in a pool they are only one category. I picked The Social Network to win best picture because I knew The King’s Speech was going to get a lot of love from my co-workers. If there was an upset, that could push me over the edge when it’s all said and done.

While strategy can help, I DO NOT recommend you apply this to your entire ballot. Favorites are such for good reason and a good portion of academy voters are just going to vote for whatever gets the most buzz. However, if you apply this to one or two categories and lose, you will make it up in the long run.

More Often Than Not, Match Your Best Picture and Director

A little known fact: Producers, not directors, get the Best Picture award. The Academy feels bad about this, so they give their Directing award to the film that leads their Best Picture rankings. Unless you are picking Best Picture as your underdog, match this category with the Best Picture Favorite.

There are years where the consensus is that the categories will split but this hasn’t happened since 2007 when Crash upset Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture (No going into the reasons for that debacle). This was another one of those years as people were convinced David Fincher would win for directing The Social Network even if The King’s Speech won best picture.

Look at (Recent) History Did you see how I used a stat from the 2007 awards in explaining last night’s winners. The human element certainly hurts the Oscars from being a pure stat’s game, more so than sports but they’re still useful. There’s no need to look at trends from the more than five or ten years ago which can easily be done on IMDb.

This also helps out with those pesky technical categories like cinematography or visual effects. Directors often work with the same people, especially if they made a similar movie. Take the Coen Brothers True Grit, similar tone and landscape to No Country for Old Men. Both were shot by Roger Deakins. If Deakins hadn’t won for No Country, he probably would’ve won this year.

Don’t Pick the Popular Foreign Films Another little known fact: Only the Academy members who attend designated screenings and see all the films nominated in the foreign category, vote for the category. This is the major reason why, Pan’s Labyrinth, Waltz with Bashir, The White Ribbon and A Prophet – all of which were extremely popular – didn’t win in their respective years. Use this to your advantage and eliminate those from your mind and just pick one of whatever’s left.

There are exceptions to the rule. If a foreign film is nominated for Best Picture a la Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, vote that film in the foreign category.

Pick the Blockbuster Best Picture Nom. in EVERYTHNG Else.

The move to ten Best Picture nominations allows hit blockbusters to get some respect from The Academy. Last year it was Avatar, this year it was Inception. For better or worse, these movies are generally considered out of the running for the big prize.

Inception was almost universally loved. This love helped it win for Cinematography, Visual Effects, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. The “popular” films are generally a given for many of the technical categories.

Don’t Pay Attention to Any One Prior Award Show

I wrote an entry about this after The Golden Globes last year. Neither that or any other award show solely decides the Oscars. While that particular awards show was precise in the acting categories but so were other shows. All I can say on these is focus on the other shows as a whole, particularly those from the Globes on. Past Oscar stats are more important though.

Other Things to Keep In Mind

• Anything with a non-linear narrative is a safe bet for editing. • If there’s an obvious choice for make-up, i.e. The Wolfman, is a sure thing more than not. • Period pieces almost always win for Costume

As always make sure to follow Audible Motion on Twitter at www.twitter.com/audible_motion for news and updates on the blog.

The following post comes from my gaming related blog, Eyes Open Thumbs Down which you can find at . Enjoy!

As I alluded to in my last post, the mainstream population has yet to recognize and embrace gaming as a true art form. While this will undoubtedly change in future, the industry has already begun its move towards this goal. Instead of film festivals there are trade shows like E3, and instead of the Oscars, Emmys and Golden Globes there are…the VGAs.

The award show’s biggest positive is that it makes Joe gamer more aware of what exactly goes into gaming. These aren’t casual gamers mind you, but gamers that stick with blockbuster franchises like “Madden” or “Call of Duty.” Not many of these players pay attention to a games voice acting and even fewer know the difference between a developer/studio and a publisher. These awards also showcase great lesser known titles to these gamers like “Limbo,” download only games, or just the fact that there are still quality hardcore titles for the Wii. Finally there are announcements for next years’ blockbuster titles we might not otherwise get until E3.

Limbo represents one of the positve aspects of the VGA's.

Unfortunately the rest of the show doesn’t provide any depth outside of these few characteristics. This is due to the choice of celebrity guests and writing based on the perceived gaming audience, the show is on Spike, and the awards don’t feel like the ultimate achievement for any studio that they should be. The result is a show that feels more like VMA’s but without the performances or events recounted in the office and schoolyard the following day.

There is at least some credibility to MTV’s award show as the station used to play and talk about music. Spike is the channel for 12 year-old boys. Their programming consists of nothing but censored “Entourage” episodes, UFC and college debauchery sit-coms (I almost forgot the monthly airing of the entire “Star Wars” saga). As I mentioned in last week’s article, the average gamer is 34 – hardly Spike’s audience.

Should The VGA's Change Venues?

It’s time for a change of venue. This proves difficult as Spike created the show but the station is owned by Viacom. The broadcast would be better suited for MTV instead of “16& Pregnant” re-runs. As far as selling the rights to the broadcast, it’s a chicken and egg conundrum. There’s no doubt the show would do better on a station like FX or USA but the show and medium doesn’t garner enough viewers to warrant that purchase. Since this change is unlikely, Spike will have to work out the kinks.

This brings us to the celebrity appearances which were mainly a victim to poor writing. Neil Patrick Harris did better with the material than he should have and the best job anybody could under that circumstance. Dane Cook, who despite recent backlash can be funny, just looked content in cashing a check with the same amount of effort put into the pre-written jokes. Even Dominic Monaghan, (“Lost,” “Lord of The Rings,”) said he was just reading a bad joke off the teleprompter.

I hope that was a big paycheck.

If Viacom insists on airing the awards show on Spike, then the least they should do is hire some stronger writers. Maria Menounos is a fine green room correspondent but that position isn’t worth however much money she pulled for that gig. They could also save money by putting in some other aspiring reporter with a pretty face. Also, what was the point of the My Chemical Romance performance? Aside from the fact that they’ve fallen in quality after their last two quality offerings, not every gamer is a fan but everyone loves to laugh. These are just two ways to save money better spent on writing to make the event must-see TV.

That’s the biggest flaw with the concept of a video game awards show in general: it’s not the highest authority in deciding which games were the best of the year. The Oscars are the highest honor in film and the same is attributed to the Emmys for television and the Grammys are gold for musicians. Even the ESPY’s are highly regarded amongst athletes despite being second to winning a championship or MVP award. Before it blew up into the billion dollar industry it is today, gaming was very much an underground industry and games journalism was unknown to all its news, sports and art oriented peers. However gamers paid attention to these grassroots publications because they knew these writers were just like them and their opinions could be trusted. Hardcore gamers are now in the habit of follow outlets like IGN, Game Informer, and Gamespot for all their gaming news and review needs. How is this show supposed to grow if it can’t even attract its target audiences’ attention?

The show would gain instant credibility if it were to integrate a gaming site into the show. The easiest way to do this would be to purchase an established website and have its writers do the voting. This could give the show interest credibility among games by making it the exclusive way to reveal so-and-so.com’s game of the year. The other option is to sell the awards to another corporation with a highly regarded site or publication but this is highly unlikely as anyone of these corporations could turn it into a huge.

After Sunday night’s debacle of an awards show, it’s clear the show need s to catch up with rising status of the medium. If Viacom can truly get in touch with what gamers want in an award show, then maybe more will watch instead of checking Twitter for updates.